Diana Gameros sings of immigrant experience

Transcending Borders, a two-hour concert by local musician Diana Gameros with her band, takes place 4.25 at The Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts

Transcending Borders, a two-hour concert by local musician Diana Gameros with her band, takes place 4.25 at The Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts

Photo: Mission Cultural Center For Lati

Photo: Mission Cultural Center For Lati

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Transcending Borders, a two-hour concert by local musician Diana Gameros with her band, takes place 4.25 at The Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts

Transcending Borders, a two-hour concert by local musician Diana Gameros with her band, takes place 4.25 at The Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts

Photo: Mission Cultural Center For Lati

Diana Gameros sings of immigrant experience

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When Diana Gameros first immigrated to the United States, she didn’t expect to stay for long.

“The original idea was to spend a summer with my aunt in Michigan,” says the Berkeley singer-songwriter, who first entered the country when she was 13 years old. But when things got rough back home in Ciudad Juarez, a Mexican border town rocked by violent drug cartels, her aunt offered take her in, setting off her journey as an undocumented immigrant in America.

Gameros, now 34, studied classical piano and recording technology at Grand Rapids Community College after a brief spell back in Mexico. It wasn’t until she moved to San Francisco in 2008, however, that she felt as though she had found a place to put down roots.

“Everything just kind of happened for me when I arrived here,” says Gameros, who performs two sets at the Joe Henderson Lab at SFJazz Center on Saturday, July 23, as part of the Great Americas Songbook series. “I fell in love with the city, culture, music scene. I was super open. I was receiving everything that was out there.”

In her first month in the city, she answered a Craigslist ad and picked up what would turn into a seven-year residency at the Roosevelt Tamale Parlor on 24th Street in San Francisco’s Mission District, performing every Friday and Saturday night while honing her distinctive style.

Drawing equal inspiration from the traditional Mexican folk songs she grew up hearing in her family home and from the sounds she encountered through her family’s record collection and personal musical exploration — Brazilian bossa nova, French chansons, indie pop and so on — she has come up with a soulful, intimate songwriting style that emanates warmth even as it delves into the difficulties of the immigrant experience.

On her debut album, “Eterno Retorno,” released in 2013 after a wildly successful crowd-funding effort, Gameros is accompanied by the Magik*Magik Orchestra, who provide lush orchestration to her dreamy vocals and acoustic guitar arrangements.

She’s working on her second album, which will be produced by Mexican pop star and three-time Latin Grammy Award winner Natalia Lafourcade, who is on the bill for this year’s Outside Lands music festival.

Gameros’ family still lives in the border city, which is still struggling to shake off its reputation as one of the most dangerous places in the world.

“My biggest dream is to finish my new album and take it back to Mexico,” says Gameros, who hasn’t been back to her native country in 14 years because of her immigration status.

“Now I realize how much growing up in Juarez shaped me,” she adds. “At the time I was there, I felt like I wasn’t experiencing any culture. But I used to write a lot. I would go stand on top of parking lots to look at the moon and the skies. We had amazing sunsets. We just had open space. Whenever I think of Juarez, there’s a lot of emotional charge there.”

Gameros received an immigration visa in 2014, and will soon secure American citizenship — a comfort she realizes many of the people she worked alongside and sang for in her early years will never experience.

“For many years, I didn’t share my story as an undocumented immigrant,” she says. “It felt awkward for me when there are millions of people going through the most horrible things to be here. But when I moved to California and felt more safe and started talking about my situation, I found out there were so many other people who had stories like mine. It really resonated with the people who heard it.

“My music really comes from the heart. If people are receptive to it, it’s such a gift for me.”